When authors refer to other great works, people, and events, it’s usually not accidental. Put on your super-sleuth hat and figure out why.
Historical References
The Miracle of '67
Stephen King is a lifelong Red Sox fan and always finds ways to slip his team's ups and downs into his books. Before 2004, the Sox epitomized hapless losers, suffering under a "curse" that supposedly came from trading away Babe Ruth in 1918. It lasted for over 75 years, so it's hard to argue with that. 1967 was another step on their agonizing road: the team made it to the World Series for the first time since 1946, only to lose to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games on the Sox's home field. That's the kind of close-but-no-cigar moment that Sox fans love to talk about. Small wonder King uses it in a book about the fragility of hope, and Andy's return to sunniness:
His dark mood broke around the time of the 1967 World Series. (315)
Bobby Thomson
As a baseball fan, King wasn't going to leave the sport at just one reference:
By World Series time of 1950-this was the year Bobby Thomson hit his famous home run at the end of the season, you will remember… (195)
Thomson was a professional ballplayer who hit the famous "Shot Heard 'Round the World" in 1951. His New York Giants were playing the Brooklyn Dodgers for the National League Championship. Thomson hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to win the game 5-4, capping a colossal comeback and sending the Giants to the World Series (which they lost). It's considered one of the most dramatic moments in baseball history. And here? It might be a way of referring to Andy's never-give-up attitude, suggesting that miracles aren't always a product of the writer's imagination.
D. B. Cooper
At one point in the story, Andy and Red make a joke about one of Shawshank's escaped convicts:
Andy swore up and down that D B Cooper's real name was Sid Nedeau. (381)
Nedeau was the convict, but who was Cooper? A real guy, as it turns out, though that might not be his real name. On November 24, 1971, he hijacked a Northwest airlines flight by claiming he had a bomb in a briefcase. The plane touched down in Seattle and the authorities brought him $200,000 and some parachutes. Then, he had the plane take off again, this time headed for Reno. In the middle of the flight, he grabbed a parachute and jumped out of the plane with the money. No one ever saw him or the money again. The FBI says he's dead, but no one ever found a body…
Again, this is King, telling us that sometimes real people escape from certain capture. His make-believe story at Shawshank really could have happened. At least…we hope.
Pop Culture References
Rita Hayworth
Rita was big deal in the 1940s, thanks in part to World War II. A photo of her in her skivvies showed up in Life magazine in 1941, and when the war started, all those lonely GI's shipped out with Rita in their pocket (so to speak). Movie roles soon followed, usually with her playing sexy and/or dangerous types. The two most notable were The Lady from Shanghai and Gilda, where she does a striptease in a defiant violation of the censors at the time. It might look pretty tame to us today, but trust us: It was hot stuff back the
Off screen, Rita was a very shy woman who made the mistake of attracting the wrong guys. Today's celebrity gossip fodder doesn't have anything on her: She was married five times, and Columbia Pictures' studio head Harry Cohn treated her like his own life-sized Barbie doll. Yeah, it got creepy. She also struggled with alcohol and Alzheimer's late in her life and retired in the 1970s due to deteriorating health. She died in 1987 at the age of 68…well after helping spring Andy from his prison cell.
Here's that striptease from Gilda we were talking about, a scene that can still stop traffic almost 70 years later.
Marilyn Monroe
There aren't too many people who can top Rita Hayworth in the sexiness department, but Marilyn Monroe definitely qualifies. Born Norma Jean Mortensen, Monroe grew up an orphan and, like Rita, started her career as a pin-up model. She landed small roles in movies like The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve before nude pictures of her were suddenly made public. They became the talk of Hollywood—prompted in part by her explanation for them, which helped stress the plight of young actresses—and led to pictures in Life magazine.
Leading roles followed quicker than a wink. Her biggest films included Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Some Like It Hot, The Prince and the Showgirl, and The Seven-Year Itch… whose subway scene appears on the wall of Andy's cell.
Like Rita, Marilyn didn't do too well off screen. She married three different times, and struggled with drugs and alcohol. She also may have had an affair with President Kennedy, but no one has the real dirt on that. Marilyn died in 1962—only 36 years old—of a drug overdose. Underneath the legend was a very sad woman who, like Andy, hid a lot of who she was under the surface.
Jayne Mansfield
Okay, now we're getting positively ghoulish. Andy's third poster girl, Jayne Mansfield, was basically the hot 50s blonde who wasn't Marilyn Monroe. She made her share of sexy posters and she stared in her share of sexy movie roles, including The Girl Can't Help It and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
Unlike Marilyn, Mansfield also did a lot of work on stage and television, as well as cutting an album titled Jayne Mansfield Busts Up Las Vegas. We haven't listened to it, but we're pretty sure it's a masterpiece.
Anywho, Jayne turned out even worse than Marilyn. She was killed in a car accident in 1967, at the tender age of 34. Clearly, rising young starlets needed to stay off of Andy's wall.
Raquel Welch
Raquel Welch was yet another pin-up from Andy's wall. Raquel played a bigger role in the movie, since her poster was the one that Andy had up when he finally escaped but she's less prominent in the book.
Ms. Welch rocketed to stardom in the movie One Million Years B.C., playing a cave-girl who, despite knowing nothing about fire or tools, still scrounged up plenty of make-up and hair products to look absolutely stunning. The movie made her an international sex symbol, and also set her up for a long series of movie and TV appearances. She handled success a lot better than her predecessors, and is still alive and kicking as of 2014 at the ripe old age of 74.
She still works, too, with a recent role in CSI: Miami and alongside Reese Witherspoon in 2001's Legally Blonde.
Hazel Court
Hazel is a decidedly minor entry in Andy's little pin-up harem, an English girl who received classical theatrical training before embarking on her career as an actress. She hit the big time making horror movies for Britain's Hammer Studios, a famous production company that specializes in blood, guts and all things spooky (Daniel Radcliffe's post-Harry Potter movie The Woman in Black was a big deal because it was released under the Hammer label.).
Hazel appeared in such classics (and not-so classics) as The Curse of Frankenstein, Ghost Ship, and Devil Girl from Mars. We figure that as the "Master of Horror," Stephen King was probably familiar with most of these titles. She retired form acting in the 1960s in order to raise her family, and apparently lived happily until her death in 2008 at the ripe old age of 82.
Linda Ronstadt
Lovely Linda serves as the anchor for Andy's girls: her poster is the one left hanging when he finally bids Shawshank adieu. Unlike Andy's other girls, she's primarily known as a singer: wildly popular in the 1970s with hits like "I Can't Help It," "Just One Look" and "You're No Good." She kept going well into the 21st century, with touring dates and a new album in 2004. Considering the fate of some of Andy's other girls, I'm sure she'll take it.
The Lost Weekend
Red mentions The Lost Weekend
as one of the movies they show in the prison. It's a well-known film from 1945, based on a novel by Charles L. Jackson about an alcoholic writer living in New York. It was an important statement on Alcohol Abuse, and it won a whole bunch of Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. It's also really really preachy: just the sort of thing hard-nosed prison officials would show the inmates in an effort to get them to reform their ways.